1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News

IM Ricardo DeGuzman won the 7th Annual Max Wilkerson Open last Saturday by defeating NM Sam Shankland in the last round. DeGuzman finished with 4.5 from 5 while Shankland ended on 4, tying with NMs Peter Zavadsky and Keith Vickers, Experts Romulo Fuentes (who drew with DeGuzman in round four), Michael Zhong and Alexander Samak and Class C player Ryan Cassidy of Alaska in the 53-player field. The latter had a tremendous tournament. Playing up every round he drew two Experts and defeated two 1900s to gain over 100 USCF rating points.

Thanks to Bill Schutt for his generous donation of books from the library of his late brother Ray to the Mechanics' Institute. Highlights include almost 50 New in Chess Yearbooks and the entire set of Opening for White According to Kramnik by Alexander Khalifman.

Last Newsletter we reported that the 2nd Imre Konig Memorial will be held at the Mechanics' Institute this July and listed all the participating GMs. We can add the names of IMs Dmitry Zilberstein, David Pruess and Josh Friedel to the list of confirmed players.

The Far West Open will be held in Reno April 6-8. If you would like to play for the Mechanics' team contact John Donaldson at imwjd@aol.com

Good luck to all MI members who will be playing in the National Junior High School Championship this weekend in Sacramento.

A few Newsletters ago we published a list of all Stamer winners. Here we look at the Mechanics' other long running annual weekend event.

The 1978 event was scheduled for the normal dates, the second week of November, but canceled at the last minute. A tournament was held in July of 1979 and another was advertised in Chess Voice to be held in November of that year. All indications are that it was held. We have been unable to find results for this event and ask for assistance.

It was a true Cinderella-story conclusion to the Internet Chess Club's annual Dos Hermanas blitz tournament at the weekend, as "unknown" Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (formerly Zamora) (ICC handle:
NECF-InSchools) defeated three GMs in the final three knockout rounds, to win the 1,800 euro first prize and blitz bragging rights of King of the Internet Hill.

One of the few untitled players to qualify from the mega event, Jorge entered Dos Hermanas unsure if he could even reach the final knockout stage! The impressive field of world class players for the quarterfinals included GMs Shahriyar Mamedyarov, Tigran L. Petrosian, Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Kiril Georgiev, Sergey Shipov, Rasul Ibrahimov, and underdogs IM Farid Khanlar Abbasov and Jorge Sammour-Hasbun.

Jorge's quarterfinal victory over 2661 rated GM Kiril Georgiev (ICC: KGeorgiev) was particularly sweet, as he has fond memories of playing ultra-long blitz sessions with the Bulgarian grandmaster way back in the late nineties before his ten-year hiatus from the game. As child prodigy Jorge Zamora won the world championship under-10 title in 1988 and later also the world under-12 title. Jorge's family emigrated from Palestine to America and there, at the age of 15 he already had a USCF rating of 2500 and an over-the-board defeated Gata Kamsky. He has an ambitious over the-
board comeback planned now on the back of his resounding victory at Dos Hermanas, an event regarded by many as the world's premier online chess tournament.

Being an unknown quantity, untitled and out of the game for ten years, Jorge saw that his progress was causing concerns from the many chess fans following the tournament, so immediately agreed to the ICC's request to have a USCF TD to act as an independent proctor for all of the KO finals to ensure there would be no accusations of cheating.

4) FIDE Tournament reporting change by Michael Aigner

Hello John,

On the USCF forums, I had asked why only a couple of USA events are on the list for April 2007. Major tournaments like both North American Opens (Las Vegas and Oklahoma) are missing.

The response I got from Mike Nolan at the USCF and Casto Abundo at FIDE explains that the USCF has not been in compliance with the new FIDE regulation requiring tournaments indicate the colors for each game. Fortunately the USCF has received a temporary reprieve.

Please email the reports to me by tomorrow latest and we shall include
them in the April list if they are in the correct format (except unknown color.)

But please make the no-color cross table a temporary accommodation.
FIDE endorsed Swiss system programs such as Swiss Manager output the
Krause format. Please suggest to Swiss system programmers in the U.S.
to include this in their programs.

Regards,
Casto Abundo
FIDE Rating Administrator

5) The Cappelle rate of play

Following its innovation in the realm of pairings (trying out the "Decreasingly Accelerated System") the Cappelle-La-Grande tournament has done it again, by coming up with a new rate of play.

Why another rate of play ?

Since electronic clocks became available and adjournments fell into disuse, organizers have had two options :

a "mechanical" rate of play in which each player is allotted a maximum period of time. The chief advantage is that the organizers can predict when the round will end and the playing venue be vacated. The disadvantages are the stress resulting from time scrambles (and any reconstructions of the moves of the game) or players exceeding the time limit, as well as the possibility that draw claims under Article 10.2 will force the arbiter into an area which is, ethically speaking, outside his competence.

an "electronic" rate of play in which players receive an initial amount of time which is increased by a fixed amount after each move. This reverses the advantages and disadvantages. Most players and arbiters prefer this system as it seems more just. But it can give the arbiters problems when one or more games is extended indefinitely (going on one or two hours, or even longer, than the other games).

The solution ? Starting with an "electronic" rate of play, one must therefore find a way to ensure that after a certain duration the longest games will not continue more than a few more minutes. The Cappelle solution is to reduce drastically the additional time added after a certain number of moves (fewer than one game in a hundred will be affected).

The following extract from the Tournament Rules shows how this will work :

The rate of play is :

100 minutes plus 30 additional seconds per move for the first forty moves and then

30 minutes plus 30 additional seconds per move for the next forty moves and then

For an 80 move game one must add (30 + 20) x 2, i.e.100 minutes (one hour 40 minutes) with a total duration of five hours 40 minutes, which would be increased by 20 seconds for each additional move. It would need a 140 move game to exceed six hours of play.

This retains the advantages of both types of rate of play without leading to any obvious disadvantages.

The East Bay Chess Club has two tournaments coming up in March:
March 24: March Scholastic Quads (open to 18 years old or younger)
--------------------------------------------------
Prizes: Trophy to top finisher
Entry fee: $15 if mailed before 3/17/07, $20 at site.
$5 discount for East Bay Chess Club Members
Rounds: 10 AM, 12 PM, and 1:30 PM
All games will be over by 3:00 PM.
Time control: G/45

March 25: March Adult Quads (open to all ages)
-----------------------------------------------------
Prizes: $40 to quad winner
Entry fee: $20 if mailed before 3/17/07, $25 at site.
$5 discount for East Bay Chess Club Members
Rounds: 11 AM, 2:30 PM, and 5:30 PM
Time control: G/90
For more details and to sign up online, please visit our website:
http://www.eastbaychess.com